You saw the Hilloweekend crowds of grown-up partygoers celebrating around Broadway and Pike/Pine. Here is a look at Hilloween 2023 from the streets of the Capitol Hill trick or treat zone around 16th and 17th Ave near Volunteer Park.
Like many essential services including public transit, the level of Hilloween enthusiasm is also back to pre-pandemic levels with lines of kids — and a few adults — scoring candy from the area’s haunted houses. Continue reading
(Images: Ananya Mishra/CHS)
A Capitol Hill Hilloween tradition since 2018, the Volunteer Park Halloween Pet Parade got the spooky season’s festivities off to a monstrous start Sunday. The annual parade organized by the Volunteer Park Trust has grown into a costume contest, pet fair, and food truck event along with the band-led march through the park.
This year’s costumes stuck to mostly traditional themes of creepy spiders and surprise lions but a few new ideas for 2023 included the popular dog-cow and a chest-bursting Alien chihuahua. Jones the cat was nowhere to be found.
For more costumed fun for everyone, mark your calendar for Hilloween 2023 as the annual carnival and day of Broadway-area trick or treating takes place Saturday, October 28th on the AIDS Memorial Plaza above Capitol Hill Station. Learn more at hilloween.me.
If you are the type who wishes every day was Hilloween, it’s time to get excited. Sunday marks the start of costume and candy season on Capitol Hill with the annual Halloween Pet Parade in Volunteer Park:
Sunday, October 8th, 2023
Volunteer Park — 1247 15th Ave EThe Schedule
11:00 AM to 2:00 PM
— Emcee: Matt Smith
— Parade Leader: 8-Bit Brass Band11:00 AM — Gather at the stage for the Pet Parade!
11:00 AM to 12:30 PM — Register Your Pet for the Costume Competition at the Stage Area
12:00 PM — Speakers on the Stage
12:30 PM to 1:30 PM — Costume Competition on the Stage Continue reading
(Image: SAAM)
Now, we just need Wednesdays. Capitol Hill’s Seattle Asian Art Museum has announced it is adding Thursday openings to its schedule making the Volunteer Park culture and art facility available for public visits four days a week.
The new schedule will begin Thursday, October 5th, SAAM says with the museum open Thursdays through Sundays for visitors. Continue reading
In an effort to bolster community resilience and preparedness, residents of Capitol Hill gathered for a neighborhood emergency drill Sunday organized by the North Capitol Hill Emergency Hub.
The event is part of volunteer-run efforts across the city trying to form a patchwork but still strong network of community plans and resources for how to keep neighborhoods safe and working when natural disasters and emergencies strike and people need to depend on each other.
The event, held in a Seventh Day Adventist Church’s parking lot at 13th and E Aloha, aimed to simulate the response to a major disaster when conventional communication channels might be down. Jessica Closson is the volunteer manager for the North Capitol Hill Hub.
“We are a group of neighbor volunteers who set up at our hub location and we practice how we would respond if there was a major disaster when all communications are down,” Closson said. “We have processes we are always trying to improve to make our response effective, so we practice and make sure we learn how to do the best job.” Continue reading
A community group dedicated to helping Capitol Hill neighbors organize in the event of a major catastrophe will hold an emergency drill Sunday afternoon and is looking for volunteers.
The North Capitol Hill Emergency Communication Hub is part of a network of volunteer-run efforts around Seattle dedicated to emergency preparedness.
Sunday, the group will gather in the parking lot of the Seventh Day Adventist Church at 13th and Aloha to practice and spread the word about being ready for emergencies. Continue reading
(Image: Seattle Fire)
Seattle Fire investigators say a string of recent arson incidents includes an intentionally set fire in the garbage cans and dumpsters outside a Capitol Hill apartment building across from Volunteer Park.
The Monday, July 17th fire outside the Parkridge Apartments brought a Seattle Fire response just before 10:30 PM. There were no reported injuries and the flames did not spread to any adjacent structures. The Seattle Fire Marshal determined the fire had been intentionally set.
SFD says the fire was part of a string of suspicious fires across the International District, First Hill, and Capitol Hill that week in which fires were set to debris and in stairwells outside buildings. SFD also responded to a major two-alarm fire in a boarded-up First Hill apartment building on July 13th but the cause of that blaze could not be determined. Firefighters also battled another two-alarm fire on July 20th in the 1000 block of King St.
“The Seattle Fire Department’s fire investigators continue to work closely with the Seattle Police Department’s Arson and Bomb Squad to share information regarding the ongoing investigations,” SFD said about the arson string.
The department also posted tips for property owners to help “reduce the chance of an arson fire at your home or business.”
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Thanks to some CHS neighbors for the picture
When the Duwamish called it Whulshootseed — crossing over — woodland creatures were commonplace. In 2023, it’s a little more special to see a doe and a yearling on Capitol Hill.
Thanks to the neighborhood tipsters for the report on the two deer seen enjoying Volunteer Park. It isn’t clear when they arrived or for how long they are going to stay but they seem healthy and happy so far. One report says deer had been recently been spotted around I-5 so the leafy park seems like a much better alternative.
Seattle Parks said it doesn’t have any issues with the visitors. Continue reading
Another Capitol Hill Pride has come and gone but let’s soak up a little more of the celebratory vibes and causes of June 2023 in the neighborhood’s annual festivities and rallies. Here is what it looked like on Broadway. And here is it what looked like in Volunteer Park as the Seattle Dyke March started on its path to a new era for the annual event.
CHS reported on the changes for the Dyke March as organizers looked to a new focus for the event beyond the annual march while also hoping to establish a new home for the gathering. Continue reading
Ten years after the first Trans Pride Seattle marched into Cal Anderson Park, veterans from that June night in 2013 and first-timers joined hundreds of people in Capitol Hill’s Volunteer Park to represent the strength of the city’s TwoSpirit, Trans and Gender Diverse community and allies.
“For 10 years, we’ve never let anything stop us from celebrating Trans joy, life, and love—and this year is no different!,” the organizers at the Gender Justice League wrote. “In a year of 450+ proposed anti-trans bills, spaces like Trans Pride Seattle are more important than ever. TPS continues to honor and carry the torch of our transcestors who created Pride as a means of cultural communion and social dissent.” Continue reading
